


Caught a Long Wind

by macneiceisms



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, family fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:57:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macneiceisms/pseuds/macneiceisms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m not putting a cow on our sigil.”</p><p>semi-domestic arya and gendry fic. contains nymeria, squabbling, and some hell-raising. annalesa bullied me into this (but not really).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Caught a Long Wind

“A wolf,” said Arya washing honey out of a chunk of her hair. She’d cut it all off herself this time, she would. Then there would be nothing for those grubby little fingers to grab onto.

“Should I remind you that the Stark’s sigil is a wolf?”

Arya rolled her eyes. “I am a Stark, stupid.”

“Yes, but if we’re going to be a different branch, we need a different sigil, don’t you think?”

The little demon pup who’d smeared honey all over herself and Arya’s hair gave a squeal of delight and yanked out a great fistful of Nymeria’s fur.

“Gendry!” Arya shouted, but Nymeria had already given their terror of a daughter a sharp nip on the backside, which ought to have left her crying.  The girl just yelped and smacked the direwolf on the nose.

“That’s enough hell-raising now,” said Gendry in that voice he used when Rickon was being particularly unwieldy or when Nymeria was caught burying the back leg of a deer in their garden. He snatched her up before the wolf could cause any real harm, setting her in his lap. But that too was not uneventful. Gendry had been asking for it, really, putting his set of charcoal pencils and his face within arm’s reach of that terror he’d put in her belly a little over two years back. His fault, really. They’d made her on the desk of Sansa’s solar, but all because he was a whiny baby who’d thought they’d get caught in the hot springs at that hour.

“Well, she’s drawn more than you have now,” laughed Arya. “Your child is feral.”

“She’s yours too,” he muttered moodily as he did his best to wipe all the charcoal off his face and off Lya’s hands. “I was there when she popped out. I haven’t had a quiet day since.”

Arya rolled her eyes and braided her hair again. “If not a single wolf, then what about more than one? Say, nine little ones on the field. Just the heads though.”

“Then you get all the representation and I get nothing.”

“I’m not putting a _cow_ on our sigil.”

“It’s not a cow! It’s a bull! It has _horns_ , Arya,” he retorted. As if she didn’t know it had horns. She wasn’t as stupid as he was. Lya gave another happy shout, trying to snatch the pencils that were out of her reach and Nymeria whined at the sound, trying to lick at the place where two terrifyingly strong little fists had dug in _. Stupid wolf_ , thought Arya with empathy. _Beaten by a two year old girl_.

“Whatever.”

“If we put a wolf and bull together, one atop the other,” he scribbled hastily on a sheaf on parchment while trying to hold onto Lya with the other hand. She was chewing at the leather tie of his shirt. Soon her teeth would start coming in and then no one would get any rest. _Pups are exhausting_ , Arya thought fondly.

“What colors?”

“Dark blue for the field, and gray for the two.”

“Hmm,” said Arya, peering over his arm. “You put the wolf on top, that’s good.”

“Don’t start.”

“Start what?” she asked, feigning ignorance.  Gendry glared at her, but the effect was somehow lessened by their daughter fisting her hands in Gendry’s beard and pulling with all her might.

“Gods,” he wheezed. “Where did she get that grip from?”

“I think that’s yours.”

“And drawing all over every surface of this room, is that yours?”

“I only ever embroidered, and my stitches were all crooked. That’s yours too. And her hair and eyes. She got none of me,” Arya said sourly. That must have been what her mother had felt, holding Arya in her arms, but if her father had been anything like Gendry, he would have been so happy it bloody shone out of him.

“She got your nose,” he said, tweaking Lya’s.

“Papa!” Lya laughed.

“And your laugh and your grin. She’s got your wildness too.”

He pulled Arya down into his lap and she took Lya into her arms, where she curled contently.

“So you like her?” asked Arya.

“Are you stupid?”

“Stupid,” repeated Lya.

“She’s the world to me,” Gendry said, brushing Lya’s raven hair from her cheek.

“Good.” Motherhood had made her all mushy and stupid like Sansa. That must have been why her heart was aching. Or maybe that was what Gendry had done to her. “Because you remember that time in the kitchens…?”

Gendry groaned.


End file.
